Promised History
by Ithilas
Summary: He promised to serve his cause without regret and to live to see the end of the war.  He promised that he'd have only one love for his life.  He'd made so many promises and he'd kept them so now it was time to keep the only promise he had left to keep.


Promised History

Summary: He promised to serve his cause without regret. He promised to live through to the end of the war. He promised that he'd have only one love for his life. He'd made so many promises and he'd kept them so now it was time to keep the only promise he had left.

History is written by the victors because at the end who wants to hear of the tale that comes from the lips of those that have lost and are as such prisoners of a war that all too often takes its price in life, blood and sanity? Chair creaking as he leans back with a somber look that has become far too common over the years he allows his vision to go dark for several long moments as he thinks. He thinks on the weight of a promise that hangs heavily around his neck like a noose waiting for the ground beneath to slip away and he compares it to the weight of reliving memories that he has been running from for years. His slim frame tenses for a moment as he remembers a flash of brilliant blue set in an expression that is far too old for the one wearing it and yet is still so achingly familiar that it leaves him wincing in at the sharp lance of pain that comes from wounds never healed.

_Better to have pain than to allow himself to forget_, he thinks.

A smile full of a wistful tenderness edged with the razor sharp edges of grief bleeds onto his features as he tilts his head back to study the ceiling above. Emotions kept tightly locked break free of their bonds as he feels his frame beginning to tremble from the overwhelming onslaught. A dry chuckle breaks free as he allows himself to become immersed in memories of clear night skies with a warm frame entangled with his own and the whispers of the wind curling lovingly about them both as they allow themselves to dream of a life that they might have had. The chuckle turns into a wordless sound of grief that plunges his world into darkness as he remembers allowing fingers to slip through his own with duty binding him to his place as the light around him begins to dim with the frame walking away from him.

Nevertheless, he knows that _every light must give way to the darkness at some point._

The moment his light is extinguished he freezes as the pain of it breaks him his mind withering from the sudden jolt into the pitch-black darkness that was life without his light. He awoke days later to find that the world had collapsed into flames around him whilst he lay unconscious and unable to smother the flames before everything turned to ash. He thinks he can remember screaming in denial and while the next few years are a blur of apathy and he still remembers vaguely the orders that pulled him from duty on the frontlines because of the fear that he would use battle as a way to commit an honorable suicide. He snorts in derision at this because even now that it's been centuries he remembers that even at his lowest he knew that suicide or death wasn't an option until he'd seen the war through to the end.

"**Promise me something."**

"**What?"**

"**Promise me that no matter what that one of us will live this through to its conclusion. Promise me that everything we've sacrificed won't be in vain."**

"**Hey now you shouldn't say stuff like that. It's bad luck and besides what's this 'one of us' deal? We're both gonna live to see the end so don't say otherwise."**

"**I wouldn't ask you if I did not believe it to be reasonable. Humans have a saying that history is written by the victors and I know that history will not be kind to those that we have opposed for so long. I want history to remember that there was once a cause for riots to break out into the street and I want those that will come after us to remember so that they do not make our mistakes again."**

"**If I promise will you promise t'stop talkin' like ya aren't gonna be there with me at the end of this?"**

His smile slips the expression turning to something darker an ugly flicker of emotion clouding his gaze as his fingers dig into the arms of his chair his face contorting into a snarl born from grief and hatred. He didn't want to live after the light disappeared from his life and he wanted to regret the promise made but couldn't because of the memory of the way the others frame had sagged ever so slightly with relief. He still refuses to admit that he chose to live just as much for Prowl's memory as he did for that stupid promise he had made because he couldn't stand watching the other sad if he could help it and at that time, he could so he did. Pushing himself up from his chair his joints popping with age he moved to stand before his window that overlooked a city rebuilt from the ashes of the sins the war had wiped clean. He let his head lean softly against the reflective surface as he wondered if there was truly a 'lesser' of two evils to be found. He could ignore his emotions and continue to hide in the half-life he'd found after his light had disappeared or he could pull himself from the darkness using his promise as a tether to the light.

In the end, he picks up the stylus and begins to write. Not because history should be recorded in the way that it happened but because he can't bear to think of the day when he will face judgment with the heavy weight of having broken a promise to the one being that he'd loved more than peace. He wants to expire peacefully with the knowledge that everything they've fought for will mean something in the end. He wants others to know of those that walked the thin line between sanity and madness so that others wouldn't have to. He writes because he remembers blue optics staring at him with a love so deep that it's priceless in its worth as he longs for that soft smile and warm look. He has so many reasons for writing but the only reason that really matters is that he dreams of Prowl's smile the night that he first starts to write and it's more of a reward than he'd ever thought he'd have.

In the time that passes as he debates on the merits of fulfilling his promise the world is filled with a history written by the victors and by those that never stepped foot onto a battlefield. When his story is published, it is like a clean wind that leaves him remembering cool fall days on a planet teeming with fragile beings that stood so strongly even when they knew they would fall. He leaves out nothing from the riots that were caused by a severe shortage of energon to the eventual grounding of the proud fliers of Vos that sparked the first rumors of unrest and revolt. He tells of how the nobles in the outlying sectors gathered their offspring to begin training for the war that was coming and he tells them of the monetary support that the nobles residing in the shimmering Towers of Iacon donated to the poorest of Iacon's denizens suffering from the energon shortage.

He weaves together the history that he lived and the threads that bind it together are tight enough to ensnare the reader into believing that they truly understand what the world was like then. He wants them to feel his grief, his rage, his pain from the horrors of the war but he also wants them to feel his pride, his joy and his hope that the war would end and that he would live to see that day. He wants them to think of the young ones who were never anything more than simple civilians before they were forced by fate's hand to become soldiers set on a path that they should never have travelled. He writes of the ones on the other side who met their executions with honor and dignity as they joined the Matrix all the while clinging fervently to their beliefs.

At the end of his book is something that his editor left in because it explains everything and allows him to leave the world with the knowledge that his promise was kept. He's the last of the original unit left when the color finally bleeds from his frame to leave him gray but happy. As the darkness fades away to light, he finds himself smiling and shaking from relief. He feels arms snake around his neck as a warm helm presses against his own and Jazz finds that his world has found its balance again while warm laughter spills from his lips.

_**I didn't want our sacrifices to be in vain. I want everyone to know why we did what we did and why we'll never really talk about it. I want them to know of the price that we paid in sanity and life to protect what we held dear. Some of us came back from the war missing these pieces of ourselves that we'll never get back but maybe Prowl was right in saying that we needed to make this a part of history. He made me promise a long time before we even made it to Earth that one of us would record history in the way that it happened. The wars been over for 45 vorns and I know it ain't been a long time considering what all went on but there's a lot that's been forgotten that maybe shouldn't have been forgotten. Maybe the humans had it right when they said that to forget history was to repeat it.**_


End file.
